Bookkeeping for Property Management

Property management in Western Australia sits under a regulatory framework that most other small businesses never encounter. Agencies handling rent and other client money are required to maintain trust accounts under the relevant WA legislation administered by Consumer Protection, with strict rules about how that money is held, recorded and reconciled. Trust money is not agency money. It is held on behalf of owners and tenants, and the records must be able to demonstrate that at any moment.

This creates a discipline that catches out agencies whose bookkeeping has grown organically. Trust accounting and general business accounting are separate systems answering separate questions. Your trust records show what is held and for whom. Your general ledger shows what the agency itself earns and spends. Where the two blur, and they blur easily when management fees are drawn from trust, reconciliation becomes difficult and the annual audit becomes an ordeal. We support your trust reconciliation and keep the general ledger clean, working alongside the auditor appointed to examine your trust records rather than attempting to perform that examination ourselves.

The GST treatment of property income is the second area where errors are common and persistent. Residential rent is input taxed, which means no GST is charged on the rent and no credits are claimable on the costs of providing it. Commercial rent is a taxable supply, so GST applies and credits are available. An agency handling both, or an owner with a mixed portfolio, has to keep the two apart. Applying one treatment across the whole portfolio produces a BAS that is wrong every quarter, and the correction accumulates.

Your own agency income needs the same clarity. Management fees, letting fees, lease renewal fees, administration charges and disbursements recharged to owners are all treated differently, and disbursements paid on an owner’s behalf and recovered need to be recorded so they are recovered rather than absorbed.

We keep income and expenses tracked by property, apply the correct GST treatment to residential and commercial income, support your trust reconciliation, run payroll for your property managers and administrative staff, and prepare your BAS. Reporting shows what each property and each income stream contributes.